


That one time

by Enceladus



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 17:57:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7650835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enceladus/pseuds/Enceladus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>’He should just let it be.</p>
<p>He should get up first, act normal, and with a smile for yet another person with whom he had shared a bed this one and only time, simply leave. No regrets, no reminiscing, no hint of hope that just blossomed in his traitorous chest despite any common sense. </p>
<p>Definitely not covering Nanase’s warm body with his own like he did now.’</p>
<p> <br/>What to do when your story finally reached the happy ending, only you have your whole life after to decide if it was enough. A very short contemplation on what could have happened after the last episode of Free! in one small Sydney hotel room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That one time

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys!
> 
> YES, I’m actually uploading something besides GWTW, would you believe it? :D Truth be told, this was originally supposed to be smut meant for my eyes only, just to keep me happy while writing angst all the time. And it turned out to be THIS, in the end?? Not even proper smut, duh...
> 
> Maybe it’s time to finally admit I’m a romantic, after all. 
> 
> Nah... only over my dead body, haha.
> 
> Anyways, as per usual, the biggest thank you to goes to my amazing beta marbled_maven for editing and everything and so much more.
> 
> Now you enjoy, and I’m hurrying back to write Gone With the Water. See you all soon!!

That one time

  

Who would believe it?

Who would expect to end up here, in this place and at this time, to add? In a small airport hotel room with mess scattered all around the stinky, stained carpet, when he should be sleeping the worst fatigue off after a race that he once again hadn’t won. 

With no one else but Nanase Haruka snuggled against his side like a tired pup.

Breathing peacefully, blissfully naked.

No, it wasn’t what he had expected at all when they hadn’t spoken the whole day through, with Nanase sulking for whatever idiotic reason his weird brain had come up with at the time. Definitely not when they had yelled at each other at the Nike after party last night - for what, he still wasn’t quite sure.

All he knew was that he had been pissed, had had a long day with only a silver place to hold behind him, and he hadn’t gotten one damn smile from that placid, undecipherable face since the moment they met at the Sydney Airport two days ago. If that wasn’t enough reason for being cranky, then he didn’t know what was.

The body next to him moved in its sleep, pulling its knee higher over his thighs, and pushed breath out of his lungs.

Now, it shouldn’t feel so damn odd, right? It’s not like he was a novice to one-night-stands, after all; he had had his fair share of them by now.

It wasn’t all that hard to get a girl, not in this world where tens of them waited behind every party door to snatch their moment with anyone they had seen on TV. Especially when you lived all alone in a city far away from any remnants of Japanese stiffness. Throw in some booze, or something more or less stronger, and there you had it - another pleasurable night and a bit less nice morning after with headache and muddled memories.

Only now it wasn’t morning yet, there wasn’t any liquor to blame it all on, and as he swallowed nervously he would never even _try_ to compare it to anything from before _._ This wasn’t a random girl’s pliable plumpness next to him, and he wasn’t sleeping it off in a vain hope to forget he had ever stooped so low - again.

He was rather staring into the ceiling with his stomach weak for a completely different reason, wishing he didn’t have to face those phenomenally blue eyes once they opened and realized the now soft cock attached to the same body was currently pressed into his hip.

Because it didn’t matter what had actually happened in this bed before Haru’s sweet breath finally evened out against his neck. It was so amazingly improbable and unbelievably fantastic that it would _never_ be enough.

The clock on the wall showed it was around half past three - it was hard to tell in the dark.

It was almost time for Haru to catch his flight back.

It was almost over.

So what, he thought as the fingers of his free hand shakily grazed the strands of black hair that had been tickling his cheek for the last two hours or so - it wasn’t as if he was going to lie to himself.

It wasn’t as if this was the start of something long and firm.

It was a flicker of good luck that he had never gotten before and would never see again; an unexpected, precious moment he had to have earned somehow in previous lifetimes. Hell - he thought as a somewhat cracked smile blossomed on his face - he must have at least saved a world or something for getting a reward as huge.

The hair was just as velvety under his touch as when he had lost his mind last night and in a mad-like moment pushed his biggest rival and so much more into the mattress, so shocked that he hadn’t been yanked through the entire room that he almost forgot how to grind.

It was soft and black, so black it was almost darker than the night around, and it smelled like home.

The knock in his chest felt horrible, crushing that one remaining chamber of an already enervated heart. Making him almost regret that it hadn’t all ended when there was still time; before he had stubbornly followed after the sulking, silent idiot into this room, frustrated and edgy like he always was around Haru. Before that cheap hotel ashtray hit the mirror right next to his head in the fight vol. 2.

At the very least before he found out the unpredictable truth that Nanase could be, in fact, despicably agreeable to everything his own sick mind could come up with in the sheets, and unlike his normal self, never once even _tried_ to hide anything he felt when Rin finally made them into one.  

Reminding him of everything there was, and could never be, not in a million years.

Of how lame it was to be in a one-sided love since the fucking third grade.

The night was impenetrable when he couldn’t stand it anymore and extricated himself as gently as possible from the very best thing that had ever crossed his path. It really was almost four o’clock; he had been right. No alarm was set on their phones to wake them up, but it wasn’t as if he needed one. Not with the way his head had been over-working itself since Haru fell asleep at his side.

That stupid head that he now held between his own knees, wondering how he was supposed to get home when the only shirt that he had arrived here with now lay crumpled under his feet, wearing more than enough bodily fluids to prove that he had just had the best sex of his life.

The wall in the bathroom that he leaned his hand against while taking a leak was just as smudged as his thoughts.

No, it didn’t make sense to mediate over why Haru had let him do all those things to his body without a single word. It didn’t matter how he hung on his neck up until the end, or the way they fell into each other better than with any girl Rin had _ever_ been with.

How it felt natural and right, like the pain that over the years outgrew a simple physical state and was unexpectedly eased the moment they kissed for the first time while rolling around in the sheets, still more fighting than making love.

No, it didn’t matter.

It was still _just_ sex.

"Where are you?" An irritated voice carried from the pillow, and the blanket stretched over the bed in the dark. Eyes, strangely alert for someone who had just woken up, shone like stars and observed his nakedness standing in the doorframe. "Come on. It’s cold."

He didn’t mind.

There was less than little on him that Haru’s hands or mouth hadn’t already been on tonight; looking was the least.

"It’s past four."

It came out feebly while he made his way through the room, as if it was said by his awkward thirteen-year old self that had followed Nanase around the schoolyard, pestering him to death just to get a piece of his attention.

Not that he felt any different now that the warmth radiating off the bed seeped again through his skin. Especially with those eyes observing him without any reaction, nailing him with intensity to a safe place not too far, but without unnecessary contact.

Still bluer than any ocean he had ever seen, even in the darkness.

"So what?" Haru asked calmly, at length, as if it didn’t matter that he had approximately forty-five minutes to have a shower, put some clothes on, and pack all of his things scattered everywhere. Including an inevitable awkward good-bye exchanged down in the hotel foyer before they parted ways; up until the next race, or up until never.

"You wanna miss your flight?" 

It was more than foolish that he whispered the question into Haru’s neck, eyes firmly shut, trying to not be pissed by the way some people thought shrugging nonchalantly was a legit answer to a question of such importance. 

He should just let it be.

He should get up first, act normal, and with a smile for yet another person with whom he had shared a bed this one and only time, simply leave. No regrets, no reminiscing, no hint of hope that just blossomed in his traitorous chest despite any common sense.

Definitely not covering Nanase’s warm body with his own like he did now.

His sigh into the black hair was shaky, tell-telling what he feared the most: to give in to the faintest chance this _could_ be something, after all; to let Nanase entangle them in a web of ambiguous words that could mean everything and nothing, until he inevitably fell for the worst option possible.

Why could he not have at least something to catch onto for once? A short _’I want to stay’_ was too much to hope for, sure, but at the moment anything would be more than fingertips wordlessly travelling up and down his spine.

"We stole the show last night, eh? At the after party." He mused lamely when he couldn’t bear the tangible silence anymore, understanding for the thousandth time that Haru was not going to change just because it made anyone disappointed or uneasy. Not even for him. "What was it, anyway? Did I get you the wrong flavour of water or something?"

He was just the way he was, and he was amazing.

Even when he wasn’t catching onto the desperate attempt of a joke that was meant to get them from this deadlock, but rather turned his face to the side, eyes hidden. When he pretended to not follow the track of the conversation because of the suddenly interesting night sky outside the small window filled with the lights of landing planes.

"Nothing was happening." Came the answer, after all. Of a typical, mysterious kind that he might have appreciated under different circumstances, but definitely not when the scared heart that was at stake here was actually his own.

"So you were _bored_? I told you to go back when you weren’t having fun."

"No," Haru objected, wearing a face that Rin had long before became familiar with; the one speaking of words lost somewhere in the corners of Nanase’s peculiar, beautiful mind. The frustrated scowl over the stupidity of a human kind that never got what he was talking about fast enough. "Nothing... was happening."

It can’t be helped, he thought as his fingers messed up the already perfect bed hair Haru wore so nicely against the white pillow.

It was up to him.

To be the one to cross the already blurred line; to risk finding that he wasn’t as clever as he ought to be for deciphering answers that were more like riddles, then probably to end up with an off-hand comment that would crush by far not just his confidence.

Because otherwise it would really be it.

Otherwise they might end up parting ways once and for all.

"You mean like... between us?" He offered an explanation, unable to believe he really was pushing his luck as far as to insinuate that Nanase had been grouchy for the past two days just because Rin was too _thick_ to get a clue.

That last night, with the race done and a departure time approaching Rin hadn’t been the only one who had feared they were running out of time. 

It looked simple, and far-fetched, and it didn’t seem to be real even when Haru’s chin touched his shoulder in the smallest, yet clear enough nod. Moved under him as if breathing was easy, speaking more with one nervous swallow and a kiss to his earlobe than he could ever with his tongue.

Making all those nights spent seeking pleasure inside of faceless bodies look even more shameful, cold as the truth that he never could feel for any of them, no matter how much he tried.

Not when Haru was always there somewhere.

Perfect in the way he reciprocated the vicious embrace now, so tight it probably crushed a rib or two in one of their chests. Looking as lost and found as Rin felt while they held each other, a silent confession valued more than any of his nameless lovers’ love tirades.

Perfect in the way he breathed.

"I could stay a day or two."

In the way his eyes glossed when he was whispered to.

"Or more."

In the way he smiled.

"Alright."

There was plenty of space between this bed and the sky full of landing planes for practicing love, spoken or not. And if even that turned out not enough, there was still his own bed, free for three hundred sixty five days a year.  

As long as it wasn’t just this one time.


End file.
